On a Tree Fallen Across the Road
On a Tree Fallen Across the Road - context Summary
Published in 1916
Published in Frost’s 1916 collection Mountain Interval, this short poem frames a fallen tree as a temporary obstacle that tests, not defeats, travelers. Frost puts the scene in plain, conversational language to stage a larger meditation on human persistence: the impediment prompts debate and deliberation but cannot stop a determined forward motion toward a hidden goal. The poem reflects Frost’s recurring interest in rural moments that illuminate universal choices, using a concrete interruption to suggest moral resolve and the inevitability of pressing on despite hindrances.
Read Complete Analyses(To hear us talk) The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not bar Our passage to our journey’s end for good, But just to ask us who we think we are Insisting always on our own way so. She likes to halt us in our runner tracks, And make us get down in a foot of snow Debating what to do without an ax. And yet she knows obstruction is in vain: We will not be put off the final goal We have it hidden in us to attain, Not though we have to seize earth by the pole And, tired of aimless circling in one place, Steer straight off after something into space.
Not to quibble, but your text is missing the word -to- in the first stanza (second line). It should read as, Throws down in front of us is not to bar